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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day & All That Gooey Stuff

Here is my deep, dark secret...are you ready?

I hate writing kissing scenes.

*Cue shocked gasp from YA Audience/Writers/World as a whole*

It's true. I try to avoid them at all costs, but somehow they always sneak into my books. I'm pretty sure it's because my brain knows they need to be there and it constructs a build-up to it while I'm not looking. Then I get to the scene and say, "Aww, man...they have to kiss here, don't they?"

In YA circles, this makes me the equivalent of that weird cousin nobody talks about. ;-)

I wondered for awhile what was wrong with me. Why did I dread writing the love scenes and got all excited to write the scary torture scenes? Did I need therapy? Probably. Did this make me a bad writer? No, no it does not. It makes me a thriller writer.

If I refused to put them in when the story clearly called for them, that would make me a bad writer. So, I suffer through the kissing scenes. Sometimes I even like them afterward.

And then I get to go back to making people afraid of what's in their closets...

Happy Valentine's Day! Yay! Love and all that!

P.S. Only a thriller/horror writer could make a Valentine's Day Post the creepiest one ever.

Myself, I tent to fear the kissing scenes. I love romance, and have no problem with them in that respect, it's just that when it comes to description, it feels like everything has been done. I mean seriously, how many ways are there to describe a kiss? Not many--especially when you write YA and have to keep it in the realm of PG-13.

The first YA book I ever wrote didn't have a kissing scene in it at all! It still doesn't...does that mean I'm not even related to the YA family? And please, keep doing what you do because I love to be scared, at least in theory. :)

Hello, Hello!

I write YA Thrillers, I tweet, I watch football--not necessarily in that order. I'm the author of The Night Walkers Series: INSOMNIA, PARANOIA, MANIA. I also have standalone thrillers CUT ME FREE and THE ROW (10/11/2016) with FSG/Macmillan. My books have sold in more than a dozen languages and over twenty countries worldwide. No, I don't speak that many languages. Yes, I wish I did.
I'm represented by Kathleen Rushall of Andrea Brown Literary Agency.